In order to prevent a car from falling, a safety stop device is used in a conventional elevator. JP 2001-80840 A discloses an elevator safety stop device for pressing a wedge against a guide rail for guiding a car to stop the car from falling. A conventional safety stop device for an elevator is operated by an actuator adapted to mechanically cooperate with a speed governor for detecting an abnormality of a raising and lowering speed of a car. In such a safety stop device for an elevator, the speed governor is mechanically cooperated with the actuator. Therefore, it takes some time to generate a braking force to the car after the detection of abnormality in the car speed.
In addition, if the actuator is electrically actuated in order to shorten the time required to generate the braking force to be applied to the car, there is a possibility that the actuator may not be actuated during a power failure. Consequently, the reliability of the operation of the safety stop device deteriorates.